If player charges characters on elevated platforms or cliffs, there is a chance that the combat will start off-grid or the player will not be aligned properly to the combat. We are working to address this in the next full patch.

Thanks for helping us to continue improving the game for everyone. Please keep letting us know if you are still having any issues with The Bard's Tale 4: Barrows Deep.

The team at inXile

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The Bard's Tale 4 is getting a major Director's Cut update in June

Feb 18

Developer InXile has announced that it will be releasing an expanded, enchanced version of its 2018 RPG The Bard's Tale 4: Barrows Deep later this year, and that its additions are significant enough to warrant a new Director's Cut moniker.

When Eurogamer's Robert Purchese reviewed The Bard's Tale 4 at the tail-end of last year, he was a big fan of its puzzle-y RPG action. However, for all the praise he heaped on its richly imaginative design, it was, he said, hard to ignore its "general lack of finesse".

The game has received several updates since then, adding new features, ironing out wrinkles, fixing up bugs, and optimising its sometimes wonky performance, but one mega update - known as 2.0 - has been looming for some time. Now, speaking in a new Kickstarter backer post, InXile's Paul Marzagalli has explained just how significant an overhaul it really is.

Read more

Eurogamer

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The Bard's Tale 4 is getting a 'Director's Cut' overhaul

Feb 18

I thought The Bard's Tale 4: Barrows Deep was an excellent dungeon crawler when it came out in the fall of 2018, but not everyone was quite so satisfied with the experience. I enthusiastically stand by my assessment—I enjoyed it throughout, even though the ending was a bit of a bummer—but if you're on the "disappointed" side of the divide, inXile is working on a "Director's Cut" version of the game that might give you a reason to take another look.

The Director's Cut is an outgrowth of the 2.0 update that the studio announced in December 2018. "As the scope of the patch has expanded (and continues to), we decided that it warranted a more formal title than 2.0. When released, it will turn the game into The Bard’s Tale 4: Barrows Deep - Director’s Cut," inXile's Paul Marzagalli explained in a Kickstarter update. "We are introducing several new features, most notably the previously mentioned DLC and an engine update, a larger undertaking allowing us to further improve performance and optimization."

The update will incorporate a free new dungeon, with a new plotline and enemy types, that was also announced in December, along with new master-crafted gear and dwarven weapons, updates to the game engine that will improve performance and stability, better art, additional character portraits, better localization options, and "expanded balancing efforts across the entire game," including combat, the economy, and character abilities.

Inventory filtering is coming (finally), a new "Song of Exploration" will enable players who don't dig the puzzles to skip past them entirely, and of course the obligatory "and much more!" is promised as well.

InXile currently expects to have the Director's Cut update ready for release in June. Alas, with the good news comes a spot of bad: Because inXile is "unable to finalize the Mac and Linux versions of the game and continue to simultaneously make such sweeping changes to it," those versions won't be released until the Director's Cut patch rolls out.

PC Gamer

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The Bard's Tale 4 is getting a new, free dungeon and a big 2.0 update

Dec 21, 2018

I liked The Bard's Tale 4: Barrows Deep an awful lot when it came out earlier this year and it's improved considerably since then, with new features, performance improvements, and bug fixes. Today developer inXile Entertainment announced that the studio is working on a new dungeon, the Royal Necropolis of Haernhold, which will be free for everyone who owns the game.

The Royal Necropolis will be a combat-focused dungeon with "several new mini-boss fights and two very challenging boss fights." Players will have the opportunity to uncover the truth of Tarjan's treachery and reverse the destruction wrought upon the tomb of Gaerwyn, the greatest hero of the Dwarves.

"While the emphasis is very much on trying out and acquiring new, powerful gear and then using it on the most challenging fights we’ve ever made, we are also able to leverage all of our existing puzzle designs and components for a set of new, mind-bending puzzles that players will have to solve to find the secrets of Gaerwyn’s tomb," inXile said.

Not everyone will be thrilled with the promise of more puzzles: For all that I enjoyed the game, even I have to admit that it got to be a little much at times. The upcoming 2.0 patch will address the hassle with a new song called "Struggler's Lament" that will instantly open most doors that are locked by puzzles. It will only work on core quest content, so you'll still have to handle the optional sections on your own if you want to see what they've got hidden away, but it will make getting to the end of the tale a less trying proposition.

The 2.0 update will also add a new tier of high-level, "master-crafted" items and change up merchants to make them more useful (particularly in the late stages of the game), add new character portraits and nine new fast-travel locations, buff unique items and Elven puzzle weapons, and—finally—add inventory filtering and controller support. Work on the Mac and Linux versions of the game is also ongoing but is taking longer than expected because of the focus on post-releases updates.

A rollout date for the 2.0 update hasn't been set, but the Royal Necropolis of Haernhold DLC is expected to be ready to go in early 2019.

InXile Entertainment has rolled out a major update for The Bard's Tale 4: Barrows Deep that brings a host of new features to the old-timey dungeon crawler. Collectively known as "Legacy Mode," the changes include the promised grid-based movement with selectable free or fixed camera, a save anywhere option, character respeccing, and toggles for gameplay options including waypoint display, automapping, and auto-resurrection.

The grid-based movement mode is still in beta, "but rather than holding back for longer we wanted those of you who are passionate about this feature to try it out and let us know what you think," inXile wrote. It also warned that enabling the feature in a saved game prior to patch 4 will result in many NPCs not looking directly at you while you're moving. The developers adjusted NPCs to better align with the grid, but propagating that through existing games would require wiping NPC save data.

"That would reset things such as their inventory, which we wanted to avoid at all costs," inXile wrote.

The updated save feature is accessible from the pause menu, and quicksaves and loads using the F5/F9 keys are also available. When the feature is enabled, however, luckstones are disabled, meaning that they can't be consumed for bonus experience.

A new Legendary difficulty setting has been added, and for the truly hardcore there's also a new permadeath mode that, once enabled, cannot be turned off for a run. "This mode is only for the bold. If your entire party is incapacitated, your save file is permanently deleted," inXile explained. "Don’t say we didn’t warn you."

A large number of bug fixes and gameplay changes have been made as well, including a big nerf to Rogues that reduces both the range and duration of their Infiltrator ability: Previously, a single Rogue with the ability could hide the entire party for three turns, but following the patch they'll be reduced to hiding a maximum of two party members for just one turn.

"This was done because Infiltrator passive was simply negating too much damage, and there were plenty of ways for the party to effectively deal damage in that time (like Razors Strop or Meditate) that wouldn’t reveal them," inXile said. "Hopefully Rogues position at the start of combat, and who you choose to hide, will be more strategic, while still allowing the enemy to get hits in on some characters."

There are some lingering known issues as well, although most of them are relatively minor, or at least rare: The game might crash if you try to save and load during the end-game credits in order to re-fight the final boss, for instance. (Fix: Don't do that.) Some major features, like a better inventory system and controller support, are still in development, and the studio is also working "a few other nice things that we can't talk about yet."

The patch notes are available in full on Steam, where The Bard's Tale 4: Barrows Deep is also on sale for 20 percent off across all editions as part of the ongoing Steam Autumn Sale.

PC Gamer

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Bard's Tale 4 whopper-patch addresses some of our biggest concerns

Nov 22, 2018

The Bard's Tale 4: Barrows Deep was scruffy at launch - I used that word in my Bard's Tale 4 review - but inXile has done significant work since. Case in point: this week's Second Sight patch, which is a whopper.

It allows you to save anywhere in the game - halle-bloody-lujah! Previously you had to wait until you reached a Luck Stone, which was a pain in the arse if your game crashed, which mine did, over and over.

Arguably the biggest thing in the patch, however, is the ability to play the game in Grid mode, like the original Bard's Tale games. As it stands, you free-roam The Bard's Tale 4 and then phase to grid for battles.

Whether you appreciated its fresh approach or loathed the concepts behind The Bard’s Tale 4, it’s hard to deny that the revival of the ancient RPG series needed a few more months in the oven. Today’s big ol’ patch, which developers inXile are calling the Second Sight Update, smooths over some of the bigger cracks in its pseudo-old-school facade. For the good of everyone, you can now save the game anywhere, but those wanting a more uncompromising retro experience can enable grid-based movement and even recruit the original six pre-made Bard’s Tale heroes.

(more…)

Rock, Paper, Shotgun

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Second Sight Update now live!

Nov 20, 2018

Hello everyone!

Today, we are pleased to bring you the Second Sight Update, which brings a number of requested features (most notably an option for “save anywhere and anytime”) and a host of fixes. It also brings our previously mentioned Legacy Mode features, which we’re thrilled to finally deliver, especially to our long-time fans of the series! For details on this patch, please check out the notes below.

Work on the game continues. Certain major milestones, such as a revamped inventory system and controller support, are still on their way. That is in addition to continued improvements and optimization based on your feedback.

In addition to the above, we also continue to work on the Mac and Linux versions, as well as a few other nice things that we can´t talk about yet. Please let us know what you think of the update, and we look forward to talking with you again soon.

The team at inXile

What is Legacy Mode?

With the Second Sight update, we’ve added a whole suite of options to customize your play experience that we call Legacy Mode. You can play the game like a modern first person adventure or wind back the clock, turn off auto-mapping, activate grid based movement, and step your way through our dungeons and overworlds like you’re back in the 80’s.

Legacy Mode Features:

Grid Move (BETA): You can now play using grid-based movement! This feature has been a long time coming and we worked hard to get that classic game feel while still working with all our more modern elements and overworld design. You’ll have the option to grid move with full free look enabled at all times or play in a more classic mode in which your camera is rotated for you as you walk forward along the grid. There's still polish on this feature left to do, but rather than holding back for longer we wanted those of you who are passionate about this feature to try it out and let us know what you think, and what you feel the most important improvements to the system would be. Let us know what you think on the forums!Note: For those turning this feature on in an pre-patch 4 save game, you’ll notice many NPC’s aren’t looking directly at you in the world while moving on the grid. We adjusted NPC’s to better align with the movement grid, but to make that change propagate in existing games it’d require wiping out the NPC’s save data That would reset things such as their inventory, which we wanted to avoid at all costs.

Save Anywhere: This has been our most requested feature. You can now save the game (almost) anywhere in the game. Save through the pause menu, or use F5 and F9 to quick-save and quick-load. While save anywhere is active, you cannot consume luck-stones for bonus experience. A small price to pay.Some areas have been blocked off from saving for technical reasons, and if that’s the case you’ll see a prompt appear letting you know that’s the case. Usually just moving somewhere else in the room or level will resolve that issue.

Auto-Resurrect: For an extra bit of difficulty, you can deactivate auto-resurrect. This will cause characters who fall in combat to only resurrect upon finding a luck stone. Food will also not revive characters while this is active.

Perma-Death: This mode is only for the bold. If your entire party is incapacitated, your save file is permanently deleted. Don’t say we didn’t warn you. This option cannot be changed once it’s been set and can only be set on new games.

Auto-Mapping: You can deactivate auto-mapping entirely, resulting in all your maps appearing black with no icons. Break out your graph paper.

Mini-Map: You can toggle how prominent your mini-map is on screen. You can set it to always show, only show while your adventurer’s HUD is up, or never show at all.

Show Waypoints: Toggle waypoints on or off, if you hate being told where to go.

Show Enemies On Map: Toggle weather or not enemies appear on your map and mini-map, for an extra challenge.

The A-Team is back: You can spend 8 mercenary tokens at Mercy the mercenary vendor to hire 6 adventurers who are fully geared for war and ready to rock.Brian the Fist, the Fichti PaladinEl Cid, the Dwarven FighterMarkus, the Elven BardSir Grady, the Trow RogueMerlin, the Einarr ConjurorOmar, the Elven Magician

Adventurer Re-Spec’ing: By spending a mercenary token at the Review Board, you can refund an adventurer's skill points.

The caster of All Together is now able to cancel the order, taking all his/her allies out of the stance that he/she granted them.

Increased the damage per spell point dealt by the Veteran passive to +3, up from +2.

The Veteran skill now grants max spell points.

Guardians, when absorbing re-directed physical damage, now benefit from 1/3rd of their total armor.

Increased the damage per spell point dealt by Spell Blade to +2, up from +1.

Several skills in the Cleric tree now grant bonus spell points, to help Rogues and Fighters spec into Cleric.

Mangar’s Mallet’s Spell Point cost has been increased to 8, up from 6. Its damage has been reduced to 1.5x your intelligence, down from 2.5x your intelligence. Trust me, its still an amazing value.

Oscons Halt Foe is now battle ready. Its Spell points have been reduced to 5, down from 8. Its cooldown is increased to 4, up from 1. Basically, its cheaper to pull off, but you can’t do it as often.

All Together’s cooldown has been decreased to 2, down from 3.

If a warrior is wielding a buckler and grants Deflect to his allies via All Together, those allies will benefit from the Stubborn Defense passive.

The damage ratio on Dueling Stance is increased to 0.8x your strength, up from 0.5x

Dueling Stance’s opportunity cost has been reduced to 1, down from 2.

Wayland’s Watch is now Battle Ready, while its cooldown has been increased to 2, up from 1.

Deflect is now Battle Ready.

Cultists Wizards have had their intelligence doubled, making their arcane barrages deal more damage, and their focus harder to break.

The loot weight on Black-jacks and Razor Strops has been doubled, making them appear more often in chests.

Blood Pact’s change to trigger has been increased to 50%, up from 30%.

Last Breath has its cooldown increased to 3, up from 2.

The damage of Passing Slash has been increased.

Elixirs of Focus now grant a flat intelligence increase instead of a % based one. This will benefit low intelligence characters more, and high intelligence characters less.

Lesser elixirs grant 4/8 intelligence.

Greater elixirs grant 6/12 intelligence.

Arcane Barrage’s damage now scales on a diminishing curve, instead of linearly. This means it’ll do slightly more damage early game, but characters with higher than 20 intelligence will see a gradual falloff in damage-to-intelligence ratio.

Soul Leech can now only trigger 3 times per turn, instead of infinitely.

The Inner Peace passive no longer increases the channel duration of meditate by +1 turns.

Conjurors mark now deals damage equal to 33% your strength, instead of 40%. Additionally, its AOE damage has been halved and it can only be triggered by non-spell attacks. This was done because of how dominant spell spamming was as a strategy, and spells triggering the mark added too much bonus damage without any real coordination with your team.

The 3 buff from vorpal plating are now mutually exclusive. Applying one of those buffs will remove any existing buffs that might be on that adventurer.

Horrifying vorpal plating has its duration reduced to 1 turn, down from 2.

The Rogue’s infiltrator passive no longer hides the entire party. It now hides the rogue and any adventurer’s standing directly to his right or left. This stealth now only lasts 1 turn, down from 3. This was done because infiltrator passive was simply negating too much damage, and there were plenty of ways for the party to effectively deal damage in that time (like razors strop or meditate) that wouldn’t reveal them. Hopefully rogues position at the start of combat, and who you choose to hide, will be more strategic, while still allowing the enemy to get hits in on some characters.

The acidic boon line now works as such:

Acrid now has a 50% chance to apply one stack of rend.

Caustic now has a 100% chance to apply one stack of rend.

Acidic now has a 100% chance to apply one stack of rend. If the target has no armor, it’ll apply the Melting status effect instead, causing them to take bonus damage with each attack.

The Electrifying boon line now works as such:

Jolting now generates a single stack of status each time a non-damaging ability is performed, up to a maximum of 3 stacks.

Shocking now generates 2 stacks of static each time a non-damaging ability is performed, up to a maximum of 4 stacks.

Electrifying now generates 2 stacks of static each time a non-damaging ability is performed, up to a maximum of 6 stacks. Each time an enemy is stunned in this way, there’s a 15% chance to stun the entire enemy team.

All traps now deal true damage, meaning that armored characters can now take meaningful damage from traps.

Fixed an issue where early access and backer reward items, like the Red Boots, weren’t showing interaction FX when they should.

Fixed an issue in which Sundering Smash wasn’t displaying the correct amount of armor it should rend. The damage rent was higher than what was being displayed. The tooltip was fixed to match the higher value.

Torches and the Blazing Star now correctly show their abilities while viewing them in the inventory.

The rusty berserkers horned helmet has been reduced to its intended 1x1 size, down from 2x2

Drunkenly Empowered rhyme of the duotime no longer affects itself

Drinking, while already plastered, will not continue to double your strength with each drink.

Clerics can now target themselves with Change Fate.

The Lunge passive on Elven Boots now only triggers when the owner uses their move ability, and not when moved by others. Additionally, it can only be triggered once per turn.

Poison damage was increased substantially and is now based on the level of the character it’s applied to, instead of being based on the applicators strength.

On Fire status effect damage is now based on the level of the character it’s applied to, instead of the applicators strength. The damage shouldn’t be vastly different for most characters, but you’ll see low strength characters able to deal much more damage with fire, while very high strength characters might see a slight drop in the damage dealt by that status effect.

In light of this change, Crux’s passive has been adjusted to deal only a token, comical amount of damage if he applies it to your own team.

Alguin now has 34 intelligence, down from 86. This means Alguin is much more likely to have his focus broken during Alguin’s Gambit.

Razor Strop had its base bonus damage reduced by 25%, and its base duration reduced to 2 turns, down from 3.

The Razor Strop item had its passive, Finely Honed Blade, fixed so it now correctly increases the duration of Razor Strop by 2 turns.

Other Fixes:

More improvements to performance and stability

Fixed an issue where viewing the Red Boots tooltip in non-english languages caused a crash.

Fixed the Swiftness, Clear Mind, Fleet Footed, and To Me! Passives to only work while your language was set to English.

The Master Thief passive now works correctly. Burgle to your heart's content. For the record, the chance rob a merchant is set to 40%.

Fixed a bug in which the Rabble-Rouser and Commander passives weren’t properly saving their bonus opportunity if the party member was moved out of the party and back in, or if they gained the skill directly inside character creation.

The master 1-handed weapon skills in the bard’s skill tree will now properly save.

Baedish Mercenaries now correctly benefit from their bonus skill points granted to them by their cultural passive.

There’s now a pop-up window warning you before you pick up the Hungering Blade that this action initiates the end game, and that you may want to complete and side quests before doing so.

Lumbering Strike now reaches enemies 3 spaces away, as advertised in the tooltip.

Your Guild Roster can now hold any number of benched adventurer’s while they aren’t in your party.

Fixed a bug that could result in Fichti party members sometimes unnecessary saving nearby allies from non-lethal damage.

Mercenaries who learn dancing lights during character creation will no longer have that ability forced onto their mastered abilities after level loads.

Fixed several text overlap issues, several of them pertaining to localized text.

The Long Bow’s passive, Blot out the Sun, now correctly reduces the cost of Rain of Arrows from 2 opportunity down to 1.

Fixed several issues involving characters not having a body while not wearing armor. They now correctly show their potato sack cloths when not wearing armor.

Taunt no longer causes enemies to trigger move twice, which resulted in some instances of bleed triggering twice from a single taunt.

Improvements have been made to NPC beards.

The descriptions of the Throw Bomb and To Me! Abilities have been updated to better reflect their functionality.

Cleaned Hutar, Captain Beckwith, and Fatherite Paladin AI so they’re better able to seek you out in combat.

Improvements to character teeth

The Scorcherer no longer appears after his quest has been completed.

Several gameplay options are now correctly quarantined to your save file. Options, such as difficulty, will now be local to your save file. If you have multiple active saves, they’ll each maintain their own difficulty settings.

A new HUD raise/lower sound has been added that’s subtler.

Harmonic Shielding now correctly adds and subtracts armor. There is still a known issue where the UI doesn’t always update correctly, but we confirmed the armor is being applied and so you’ll still benefit from it.

Additional artistic points of interest have been added to Skara Brae Underground.

Fixed several instances of combats starting in or below collision.

Fixed an issue that resulted in dragon’s bile puddles persisting after combat, and having blocking collision that made it hard to move around. Both issues have been fixed.

The Razor and the Source Dagger now correctly synergize with the Spellblade passive.

Fixed a visual bug in which drunkenly empowered Sanctuary score would heal you just before you died, making it looks like a bug, when in fact the damage you took was great enough to kill you through the heal. It’ll no longer show the healing if you’d die as a result anyways.

The Feast and Famine abilities have been fixed to do the correct amount of damage, as advertised. Their tooltips have been updated to display what damage type they deal.

All characters can now wield the Hungering Blade. All practitioner parties can now defeat the mad god.

Fixed an issue where characters would appear incapacitated but have positive health.

You can now talk to Kian regardless of what quest step you’re on.

A Model Quality setting has been added to the options menu

Fixed an issue where the static charge status effect icon would persist after combat.

The bonus focus buff from Elixirs of Focus now correctly last for 2 turns, instead of only one.

Fixed a lock-pick panel in the Glade of Mathan so that you could interact with it.

Fixed several issues relating to status effects not stacking atop each other properly, including Drunken Wayland’s Watch, Drunken Falkentyne’s Fury, and Rend.

You can now view tooltips in the options menu.

Fixed a crash related to winning combat while a Siambra Dhu had an explosive arrow attached to one of your adventurer’s.

Fixed an issue where existing the game and re-opening the game at a certain point in alguins tower would create an invisible barrier, blocking progression.

The Logician Dinner Party quest no longer updates how many books you have simply by moving the books around in your inventory.

Song of Compulsory Cavorting now breaks enemy focus, as intended. When this happens you’ll see the enemy isn’t dancing, but is still stunned as intended. We opted to push this fix without the dancing animation fix rather than leave the bug in.

Several optimization, LOD, and culling fixes in the Forest of inshriach.

Fixed an issue where you could charge enemies right when being spotted, or walking into them, and you’d start combat with the enemies behind you.

Fixed an issue in which Sanctuary Score’s status effect icon wouldn’t be removed if it were removed from enemy damage.

Known major issues

Important Hotfix Note! We've pushed a hotfix today (11/21/2018) to address certain push-blocks not being traversable in free movement mode. We wanted to get this fix out as soon as possible so you would be able to complete the main quest line. All main-quest dependent push-blocks have been fixed with this hotfix, but sadly 2 optional push-block puzzles remain un-traversable in free move mode. If you encounter push-blocks you cannot walk over in free move mode, you can switch to grid move mode and traverse over them just fine. We’ll work to get these remaining issues fixed soon.

If you attempt to save and load during the end-game credits and re-battle the final boss fight, the game may crash. To avoid this bug please avoid saving during the credits and load your last save game from the main menu instead. You can skip the credits by pressing escape and going to the main menu.

Attacking a concerned citizen before Jarnels Eyes effects have faded results in bugged materials on the enemy model

There’s a small edge case in which you’re able to transform a goblin into a cultist during the illusory Dalgliesh fight if you’re able to hit both Illusory Dalgliesh and a goblin at the same time before Illusory Dalgliesh has transformed. The bug is aesthetic only, and shouldn’t block completion of the fight.

In the main menu, if you go into the load game menu, hit escape to close that menu, then press escape again, the buttons on the main-menu will hide. You’ll need to just restart the game to proceed at that point.

Purchasing the “Wand of Peace” book from Feargal will not start the Wand of Peace quest as intended. Instead, the quest automatically starts when you enter the Lodge of the Siambra Dhu dungeon.

While on “The Hungering Blade” quest, no waypoints appear to guide you to Mother Nain while in the Baedish Lowlands.

Using the new Save Anywhere feature you’re able to avoid combat with Mangar in Kylearan’s Tower, save/load inside his chamber, and place your game in a bugged state that might require loading a backup save to resolve.

If you right click on an item in your inventory, move your mouse away, right click again, select destroy or split, and then leave the destroy or split confirmation window, then the escape button will not close the inventory and you’ll have to use either I or the close button at the top-right.

Repeatedly pressing Esc during the fade in transition to any NPC conversation, may cause soft lock for players

Trow are wearing ill-fitting boots.

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InXile acquired by Microsoft: the interview

Nov 19, 2018

On Saturday 10th November, Microsoft announced buying Californian role-playing game developers inXile Entertainment and Obsidian Entertainment. Two studios independent which had fought for survival for a decade-and-a-half were now under the Xbox umbrella. The message from Microsoft was reassurance: don't worry, nothing will change, we won't kill them - they'll continue to make the games you love, only they'll have more resources and support available to "fully realise" their ambitions. Nevertheless, questions remained.

Both companies are tied up in crowdfunding - particularly inXile, which has Wasteland 3 still to deliver - so what happens there? And what happens to promised PlayStation 4 versions of games - can they still fulfil those as Xbox studios? Moreover, will they leave isometric games behind in favour of glitzier projects?

For this interview, I'm concentrating on inXile, speaking with company founder and video game veteran, Brian Fargo, about the Microsoft deal. I hope to do similar for Obsidian, and I am in contact with the studio, but it's proving trickier to organise.

The acquisitions were announced during the X018 fan event in Mexico today.

In a statement sent to Eurogamer, Microsoft said of Obsidian: "As one of the industry's premiere RPG developers, we couldn't be more excited about the opportunity to add their expertise to Microsoft Studios, while enabling the studio to preserve its unique culture and build on its talent and vision to fully realise their creative ambitions."

Read more…

Eurogamer

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Hotfix 3.1 is live

Oct 15, 2018

Hello everyone,

We have just released a hotfix to solve the following issues:

German - Fixed the issue where cogs were unintentionally stacking as a single type versus three different types. The tooltips aren't localized at the moment, however, all new German players will not be blocked. For German players with previous save games, please adventure to Boar Temple and Skyhenge to find additional cogs waiting for you so you can progress your adventures.

Fixed players having a small chance to suffer odd behaviors, including crashes, when using a Practitioner’s Dragon Breath & Conjurorer’s Mark on groups of skeleton enemies.

Fixed an issue with Fairy Powder Bomb that would cause hangs with multiple wave combats.

Fixed an issue with the Zanta fight in regards to killing multiple skeletons in the first turn of combat.

Fixed a crash during combat when stacks of ‘On Fire’ are damaging Yadis and Primeval are also on the grid.

In addition to the fixes, enemy difficulty on hard mode was increased to +60% enemy difficulty over normal mode, up from +40%.

We apologize for the inconvenience. Please keep letting us know if you are still having any issues with The Bard's Tale 4: Barrows Deep.

The team at inXile

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The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep Patch 3

Oct 11, 2018

Hello everyone!

Today, we are pleased to get you the latest patch for The Bard´s Tale IV: Barrows Deep.

Patch 3 introduces additional enhancements to graphic settings, character art, localization, as well as further addressing remaining issues like ability bugs, optimization of loading times, and stability across the game.

With Patch 3 done, please allow us a few personal words: Here at inXile, we are always committed to making quality RPGs, and we are totally devoted to what we are doing. The Bard’s Tale IV: Barrows Deep is a game that we poured our hearts into, and every single one of us is very sad that the release of the game we are so proud of was overshadowed by performance issues. Of course, we wish that we had caught these things at launch and have been working overtime to correct them as quickly as we can. For those of you affected, we are truly sorry for any bad experience that you might have had.

We hope you will enjoy the changes and if you do, we would be very grateful for a user review if you haven't written one yet. Of course, the same applies if you were forced to write a negative review in the past, but would be so kind to reconsider now if the issues that prevented you to enjoy the game were addressed in the meantime.

Thank you very much for your patience, and your ongoing support. It means the world to us.

With Patch 3 being released, we are now focusing on our original goal of enhancing the game by adding many additional features after launch. Legacy Mode, controller support, and grid movement will only be some of them and we will talk more about those items and more in the near future. Friends of Mac and Linux will also be happy to hear that we are working on those versions as well.

Players who played in non-English languages and encountered issues with placing cogs into gear puzzles and had their save files corrupted should now have working save files again.

Fixed a crash related to using Jarnel’s Eyes in certain dungeons.

Fixed a crash related to skipping the post combat screen after defeating Mangar for the 1st time.

Fixed several combat placement bugs across the game.

Fixed a crash in the Cellars of Kylearan's Tower caused by defeating Mangar and then defeating any remaining fights in the dungeon.

Fixed a bug relating to how push-blocks reset themselves after being pushed into a hole multiple time. They'll now properly reset each time Stone Remembers is sung.

Fixed a crash relating to using Mangar’s Mind Jab in the fight against Mangar.

Fixed several issues relating to certain performance actors not saving properly after escaping to main menu.

Fixed an issue in which players could not access vendors after reloading a save game under some circumstances.

Fixed an issue in which hidey bides wouldn’t work correctly if you exited the game before looting the cache or the cache reset itself.

Gameplay:

Fixed several issues where certain doors and puzzles were not saving when exiting to the main menu or to desktop.

Fixed a bug that caused Sharp, Keen, and Honed puzzle weapon boons to reduce your damage to 0 when you critically hit with a dagger or a bow ability.

The description of the Wrecking Ball passive has been updated.

Fixed a bug that caused 2-handed weapons to corrupt your characters stats when equipping and unequipping that item after purchasing skills.

Fixed a bug in which the bridge to the Orkan Rookery could get stuck if you ran into it while it was assembling.

Fixed a bug that resulted in Arthur de-spawning if you defeated the ritualists around him, but save/loaded your game before speaking with him.

Fixed several instances in which waypoints were not deactivating when you switched which quest was being tracked.

The Power Rush passive and status effect have a clearer description, and now correctly work with AoE abilities.

Lute of Compulsory Cavorting no longer has question marks in its description and its Drunk effect works properly.

Fixed an issue in the Sentry Tower that resulted in buttons on the 3rd floor getting stuck in the depressed position if you exited the game before they reset themselves.

Removed extraneous waypoints in Castle Langskall.

Fixed an exploit that allowed you to dupe items inside the merchant inventory.

Fixed an exploit in which you could duplicate items via offering statues.

The Guardian passive now has a clearer description of what it's doing.

Fixed an issue with status effects, like On Fire or Rend, stacking from different sources and not correctly calculating the effect. If two status effects aren’t the same strength, they’ll no longer stack on one another, and instead create a new stack.

Fairy Powder Bombs will now play their explosion when they detonate, and will no longer harm your own team.

If you escape to the main menu during the final animated scene in the game (the cinematic after defeating the final boss), your save file can get into a state in which you cannot complete the final step of the main quest. To avoid this issue, please allow all the animated scenes to play out without exiting the game.

We found that player’s have a small chance to suffer odd behaviors, including crashes, when using a practitioner’s dragon breath & conjurorer’s mark on groups of skeleton enemies.

Player’s zoning into Skyhenge for the first time have a small chance to experience a crash. This only happens on the first time transitioning into the zone.

Player’s summon creatures that last till the end of combat will create a checkerboard icon on the victory screen.

Tarjan boss fight can be completed without utilizing the hungering blade by using the melting boon from puzzle weapons.This is an exploit and not as designed.

The team at inXile

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The Bard's Tale 4: Barrows Deep review - a scruffy puzzler's delight

Oct 4, 2018

I'm sorry this review arrives late, but The Bard's Tale 4: Barrows Deep is stubborn. Trying to power through it is like trying to solve a great pile of crosswords in one sitting: your brain would turn to mush. You could cheat - The Bard's Tale 4 includes a walkthrough out of the box - but you would rob yourself of the point of the puzzle in the first place. The answer doesn't really matter; it's the process you undergo to get it and the satisfaction you feel when you do that counts. In this way The Bard's Tale 4, one giant collection of puzzles, can be enormously satisfying, but force the issue and you will bang heads with it. It cannot and should not be rushed.

The other important thing to know or remember about The Bard's Tale 4 is where it comes from. This has its roots in crowdfunding, and is not a big budget game with a huge team. Character models are dated and cutscenes are slideshows with filters on, and a variety of bugs (a huge second patch for the game has just been released) forced me to reload upwards of 15 times. This is particularly annoying in The Bard's Tale 4, because saves happen at little pillars and not freely from a menu, meaning you have to redo progress each load.

But what other games do you know that come with a printable Code Wheel for solving puzzles? What other games do you know with a bard hero class powered by booze? What other games do you know with a live-action, evolving story recap when you select 'Continue'? What the Bard's Tale 4 sacrifices in polish it makes up for with personality.

Read more…

Eurogamer

3

1

The Bard's Tale 4: Barrows Deep review - a scruffy puzzler's delight

Oct 4, 2018

I'm sorry this review arrives late, but The Bard's Tale 4: Barrows Deep is stubborn. Trying to power through it is like trying to solve a great pile of crosswords in one sitting: your brain would turn to mush. You could cheat - The Bard's Tale 4 includes a walkthrough out of the box - but you would rob yourself of the point of the puzzle in the first place. The answer doesn't really matter; it's the process you undergo to get it and the satisfaction you feel when you do that counts. In this way The Bard's Tale 4, one giant collection of puzzles, can be enormously satisfying, but force the issue and you will bang heads with it. It cannot and should not be rushed.

The other important thing to know or remember about The Bard's Tale 4 is where it comes from. This has its roots in crowdfunding, and is not a big budget game with a huge team. Character models are dated and cutscenes are slideshows with filters on, and a variety of bugs (a huge second patch for the game has just been released) forced me to reload upwards of 15 times. This is particularly annoying in The Bard's Tale 4, because saves happen at little pillars and not freely from a menu, meaning you have to redo progress each load.

But what other games do you know that come with a printable Code Wheel for solving puzzles? What other games do you know with a bard hero class powered by booze? What other games do you know with a live-action, evolving story recap when you select 'Continue'? What the Bard's Tale 4 sacrifices in polish it makes up for with personality.

Read more…

Eurogamer

3

1

The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep Patch 2

Sep 28, 2018

Hello everyone!

The second patch for The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep is live, and it is a big one. Once again, thank you for all the feedback you provided. We really appreciate it.

In this patch, our team's main focus was continuing to improve optimization of the game across both the GPU and the CPU. We have made some great gains in this area across all quality settings and we will continue to improve it in the upcoming next patch.

We also continued our improvements to loading times. Additional notable fixes in this patch include a resolution to a problem some people experienced during launch where non-ASCII characters in Windows usernames would cause a game crash, UI support for widescreen and non 16-9 aspect ratios, large localization updates across all languages, clean-up pass to the mini-map (including adding save totems to it), lots of ability clean-up and description work, and various balance tweaks.

Moving forward, we are already working on the third patch that will have additional optimization and load time fixes. We expect this to be out in approximately 10 days when this work has been completed.

Beyond that, we will be focusing on additional optimization, fixes, and Legacy Mode. Unfortunately, Legacy Mode will not be part of the third patch as we originally suggested, as this feature is a larger project, and we did not want that feature to reduce the cadence of our updates in the meantime..

For details on this patch, please check out the notes below.

Patch Notes:

Fixed a crash on launch issue for Windows accounts that contained non-ASCII characters

Fix so players won’t be able to save masteries from one adventurer on another adventurer

Fix for item meshes that weren’t previously showing up when inspected

Fix for end game scenario where Anvil Fist would no longer be a store as his conversation option wasn’t showing up

Fix to prevent arrow keys from selecting disabled dropdown widgets

Fix to a few animations that weren’t looping properly and had a hitch

Fix to subtitles not showing up properly in some instances for human male and female variants

Updated Thomas Hoff mesh so he no longer clips

Fix to Gerund conversation to not auto-trigger at such a large distance

Updated skill tree icons that weren’t unique

Updated Songs of Exploration ability usage so the party HUD will hide after using the ability

Fix for gold sense continuing to trigger on chests that have already been opened

Fix where Tarjan and Zanta camera sequences were missing subtitles

Added effect and sound when Shadow of Mangar spawns in

Fixed a level streaming issue in Iwon Reg where player could see through the world

Fixed an issue where, in rare instances, game could softlock upon interaction with a secret door button in Castle Langskaal

Fix an issue where a UI softlock could occur in rare instances in a cutscene in Castle Langskaal

Fix for Dragonsbile Bomb puddle audio that could persist after combat had ended

Various audio improvements to characters and levels

Fix to Arcane Barrage muzzle flash not cleaning up properly where the particle would stay in the world after combat

Fix to various abilities where All Out Assault wasn’t applying to the entire ability, Storm of Blades damage preview wasn’t working well with multiplicative effects, Razor Strop tooltips displaying incorrect info

Fix where archer’s beat VFX were staying around after an enemy was killed

Various VFX optimizations

Fix for songs of exploration tooltips no longer showing range diagrams that were unnecessary

Fix where Compass of MACO did not, in fact, point north

Updated to setting of view distance for NPCs based on user settings

Updated materials on Ham in Fettercairn

Reduced clutter on mini-map icons

Fix for some enemies like floating wizards and giants when hit by specific damage types freezing their animation

Fixed a performance hang that would happen when certain enemies would trigger caltrops

Updated weapon, item, and armor tooltips to reduce redundant text.

Updated tooltip text (where applicable) to explain that an item can be equipped from an ability

Fix for crash where the player could inspect an item in the character sheet while an item was on the cursor

Moved stat plate locations on giant and wraith enemies

Fix to an issue where it wouldn’t save the location of your masteries after trying to rearrange them.

Fixed an issue with 16:9 monitors that have a greater resolution than 1920x1080

Fix on materials on Father Rythe in Fichti

Added missing audio to various UI elements

Reduced Falkentyne’s Fury damage by 35%

Large amount of fixes to localized text that was showing in an incorrect language

Updated Russian font assignments for handwritten notes

Fixed spot in Castle Langskaal where a player could fall through the world when triggering a combat

Fixed issue where some normal abilities were always showing the range diagram, even if they do not need it

Updated cinematic UI to handle different aspect ratios

Updated UI layouts based on various aspect ratios, including widescreen

Reordered PAK files to help increase loading times across all scenes

Fix for What The River Takes Ghost spawned from combat not saving their state and staying in the world

Fix to notification for when the Wraith is killed to notify the owner to go back to Gate ability from Banish Wraith

Slightly increased difficulty on skeletons and charn skeleton health and power level

Turned of mipmapping for hair alpha cards to prevent beards and hair from disappearing when texture resolution changes

Added some status effect types to determine how a status effect stacks when another status of the same class is added to the combatant

Added internal setting to adjust type of fog being used based on quality settings

Adjusted optimization settings for texture streaming and various texture qualities

Optimizations to animals and ultra dynamic sky to reduce amount of ticks

Updated AI for Cultist Sorcerers to be more active on the combat grid and reduce them not having an action on their turn due to cooldowns

Added ravenous null audio to Duke Kingston’s lair

The team at inXile

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The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep Patch 1

Sep 21, 2018

Hello everyone!

Today we are releasing the first patch for The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep.

Once more, thank you for your patience and understanding while we continue to resolve all issues you may encounter as quickly as we can. In addition to that, we are also very grateful for all the feedback we have received from you since launch. Please keep sending us your reports and thoughts, it means a lot to us and helps us to hunt down all remaining problems (as well as considering other revisions).

Let's take a more detailed look at Patch 1:

Our primary focus has been to address the topics which most impact your gaming experience, based on your feedback and what we’ve seen pop up during the last few days:

Crashes

Dropping framerates

Non-functional widescreen support

Unusual loading times on HDDs

FOV slider

Localization concerns

As already stated in the road map we released earlier this week, some of these points are not easy to resolve and require in-depth changes to the game (and subsequent testing). This applies especially to stabilizing framerates, improving loading times, and taking care of resolution issues. Today's patch lays the overall groundwork for fixing these, and you will see more improvements with patch 2, currently targeting Friday 9/28.

While we continue building on that, a number of issues have been fixed in today’s patch. We added a FOV slider, solved some pesky crashes, overhauled some funky skills, and many other things. Please take a look at the complete list of changes to get the full picture:

Added FOV slider to the options menu

Added ability to delete each save independently

Updated ordering of PAK files to improve loading times up through Skyhenge

Removed code that auto sets controller functionality if a gamepad is connected. Gamepad functionality will be added in patch 3

Updated Blessing of Mathan VFX to remove untextured squares

Drunk tutorial should no longer fire off when stepping into a trap

Added aspect ratio adjustments when resolution is changed

Fix for changing between resolution, language, and fullscreen in the options menu causing the game resolution to revert to 1 x 1

Switched Sybale’s background VFX to the rogues set instead of the bards set

Fix for issue where pausing the game in certain (spoilers removed) cutscenes could cause the game to be unresponsive

Updates to floating damage text for readability

Fix for Rabbie’s FaceFX for Snow in Summer song.

Fix for issue where level transitions while dual wielding two main hand weapons would destroy the main hand weapon and dupe the offhand weapon

Fix for Elven wine tooltip to show amount of spell points you generate on use

Small walkability fix in Fichti forest

Fighter’s mana bar shows up now if they have the Veteran passive

Updated traps in base of Song of the Sentry to deal damage to the whole party

Updated text on skill points tutorials

Fix to Harkyn’s Castle and logic puzzle quests to properly complete

Fix to secret doors in Iwon Reg that became impassable after save/load

Fix for an issue where an equipped trinket would duplicate if a consumable trinket was swapped with it

Made the Torr Fion key a quest item

Can no longer spam a lever in Mangar’s tower that would restrict the skulls

Fix for Show North so it’s not useable in combat

Fix for bug where mana was using the current mana value and not the max mana value with certain items

Fix for wraith sub-abilities not respecting mana costs

Update to a combat space in Iwon Reg that was on top of spikes

Fix for an issue in Baedish Forest where there was a chance to get stuck in a combat space

Hotfix:

Fix for a possible sequence break in the Isle of Stronsea where the player could speak with the selkie sisters before they should be able to.

If you have questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at our support line[inxile.zendesk.com].

The team at inXile

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The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep Patch Road Map

Sep 19, 2018

Hello everyone!

First of all, thank you for your patience and for your ongoing support. We are here to update you on the short-term road map for The Bard’s Tale IV so you can get a sense of what’s coming. We had a few more problems during yesterday’s release then we had hoped for, and we apologize for the inconvenience. We will try hard to solve all of your issues as fast as we can.

One of the biggest concerns has been the delay in delivering the final keys of the game. Both our partners Crowdox and Xsolla faced a situation where these were not distributed as planned and it took them some time to sort it out. Our partners have assured us that all remaining issues should be resolved by today.

We are also aware that some people are experiencing problems with dropping framerates, missing widescreen support, FOV sliders, or unusual high loading times between certain areas. In addition, a small amount of people are encountering a black screen on load. Thank you for all the feedback you have been provided so far, and we want to make sure you see what we are doing with it. Please take a look at our patch notes below for detailed information.

We are working around the clock to solve these issues as soon as possible. Also, we would like to ask you to let us know if there are any other issues that influence your personal gaming experience in a negative way. We have spent a lot of love, time and effort into the development of The Bard’s Tale IV: Barrows Deep, and there is no bigger reward for us than if you are enjoying it.

The team at inXile

Patch notes:

Patch 1 – Est. Friday 9/21

We’re starting initial work on improving load times to help people playing on non-SSD hard drives. There is more work to be done but it’s a big focus of ours in the near future

Initial work on optimization and framerate improvements.

Auto-detection of hardware and adjustment of quality settings on initial load of the game. While there is currently auto-detection in the options menu, it wasn’t happening automatically. The game defaults to Ultra settings which is likely causing FPS issues for those without high end hardware.

FOV adjustment slider.

Fixing wide-screen monitor support. This is part one of a two part plan.

First is getting the resolution settings working as intended followed by an art pass on the UI elements in patch 2.

Fixes for a few side quests that weren’t triggering as intended

Fix to puzzle weapons where if a puzzle is solved on the weapon while it’s equipped by a player, it will result in the puzzle reverting it’s state to unsolved. As a workaround now, it can be solved in the inventory perfectly fine.

Optimization to Kaels Rudiment that dropped framerate while in combat

Fix in Magnar’s Tower where a lever can be spammed in the shadow combat room that makes a bell hint unreadable

Fix for a softlock if a tutorial pops up when a player reads a note

Falkentyne’s Fury will no longer persist on the players party team after a combat has ended.

Fix where the Strifespear’s abilities don’t play nicely with the Vanguard skill

Update to the save system that will allow players to delete saves as needed.

Fix for a bug where killing Charn Cultists with Falkentynes Fury, which would result in a soft lock.

Fix for spellpoints not updating correctly on the stat sheet when gear is equipped and unequipped.

Fix where in rare instances, activating a standing stone of gratitude before going into a combat can result in a soft lock

Fix for a duping item issue by replacing a non-stackable trinket with a stackable one.

Fix so MACO compass can’t be spammed outside of combat, allowing for a stacked stun chance.

Fix where pausing the game during a cutscene after killing Yadis can cause the game to enter an unresponsive state.

Fix for the wraith where it shows 3 mana before summoning but actually costs 4 mana.

Other smaller fixes

Patch 2 – Est. Friday 9/28

Continued improvements to load times

Continued work on optimization and framerate. By this patch, we expect to have some solid improvements in place for some areas that have higher than expected hits to your GPU.

Part 2 of wide-screen monitor support. Updating the full screen art and layout of UI elements like the quest text and mini-map to extend to the proper edges of the screen.

Update to the save totem system and adding mini-map markers for where save totems are in the world.

Updating and improving localization in all languages for noted issues and some awkward grammar

Fixes to a variety of abilities to make their effects more clear.

Balance pass to some weapons and abilities after gameplay feedback.

Fix to masteries sometimes not saving their ordering when changing them in the mastery page.

Fix to some sounds not playing in certain parts of the world and in some UI elements

Fix to the party HUD staying open if you use a merchant while party HUD is up

Fix for removing range diagrams from Songs of Exploration where unnecessary

Fix for caltrops not firing off if summoned enemies enter their space

Update to some text spacing and flyouts in combat for readability

Update to map legends and mini-map to remove unnecessary items and improve readability

Fix for health bars showing up in front of giants and some bosses

Fix for some FaceFX issues on characters

Fix for some models not displaying when inspected from the inventory

Fix for some redundant text in the ability tool tips

Fix for gold sense where it doesn’t turn when near a chest after it has been looted

Patch 3

Additional Loading time improvements

Additional game optimization and framerate improvements

Addition of a Legacy Mode (hardcore mode with grid move, option to turn off mini-map, the A-Team, perma-death, auto-resurrect)

Ability to speed up combat animations

Inventory sorting

Controller support

Continued bug fixes and general improvements

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The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep is Available Now!

Sep 18, 2018

Hi everyone, thanks to all of you for helping to make The Bard's Tale IV: Barrows Deep the #1 Top Selling Game on Steam on its launch day!

In order to access the extras that you received when you pre-purchased or bought the deluxe edition of the game, here’s what you will need to do:

First install the game. Once Bard’s Tale has finished installing, you’ll want to navigate to the directory it was installed to.

1. You can do this either through manual navigation or by right clicking on The Bard’s Tale IV in your Steam Library, going to properties, then navigating to the "Local Files" tab.

2. From here you can click on “Browse Local Files".

3. Once you are in the directory where you install is located, you’ll see a folder Called “Extras".

4. Once in the Extras folder you will see the digital goods you received based on the version of the game you purchased or based on the amount you backed.